Numbers game

Page Tools

It beat Dungeons and Dragons. It beat waiting for Donald Trump
to come along and make them jump through hoops for an
apprenticeship. And, best of all, it proved to a bunch of college
kids at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that, with some
solid work and a lot of nerve, you can indeed switch the odds and
beat the bank.

In his documentary Beating Vegas, American filmmaker
Gordon Forbes barely conceals his admiration for a now-notorious
gang of mathematically brilliant students who, in the 1990s,
decided to outplay the casinos.

They revived and developed a mathematical probability program
for the game of blackjack devised by MIT's Edward Thorpe in the
1960s, and, with strategies, theatre and devastating teamwork, took
on Las Vegas.

They set up "investment companies", with dividends and all the
free-market trappings. Then, after a training spell in speedy
maths, they produced a system that allowed them, briefly at least,
an opportunity to live every gambler's dream. The kids invested,
made millions, enjoyed every VIP luxury and kept Vegas
puzzling.

Their blackjack techniques involved undetectable card-counting
during a game. Working out how the cards have fallen, with help
from secret signallers and others co-ordinating the bets, the
player knew when to drop $20,000 in chips before the croupiers. And
the homework put in by the MIT "nerds" made them fortunes.

Although card-counting was not illegal, the Las Vegas casinos
could throw out unwanted customers at any time. So the students,
who had divided into two companies, Amphibians and Reptiles, needed
strong cover stories to conceal their youthful presence and big
spending. One claimed to be a Russian arms dealer, another girl
used wigs, make-up and a dazzling wardrobe of outfits that would
have won the approval of Alias spy Sydney Bristow.

In tuxedos and gowns, they flew to Las Vegas each weekend,
tootled down the strip in convertibles and limos, and became guests
of the casinos, which tried to work out just who they were and why
they were so successful.

It's a great story, although Forbes, who uses re-enactments,
doesn't get quite as close as perhaps we would like. Did friction
and betrayal among these nerdy sons and daughters of Enron really
bring it all to an end? Were there Vegas mob retaliations?
Beating Vegas throws in its hand just when the story is
becoming interesting.